The hapless master of “Delsrop” paced his dining-hall in a rare conflict of emotions. The wine gleamed on the table; but none was there to call a toast in it. His hospitality was abused; his company retired¹; and he was audibly cursing that cantrip of Fortune that had endowed him with a wilderness² and a party of lunatics and cut-throats to people it, and had made of it at the same time a perfect purgatory³ of misunderstanding.

 

“Now,” he groaned⁴ to himself, “if I am not in the mind to call in Jack⁵ Fern and his gang to resolve a problem that gets beyond me!”

 

All had disappeared from the room, and he was alone. He had himself, in a fury of passion, borne away Darda to the stables—whereto there was a covered passage leading from the north wing of the house—and had locked her in amongst the deer, as safe and appropriate to her animal outburst. Angela—more frightened than hurt by the little punctured⁶ wound on her fair white shoulder which the knife had made in its fall—had been supported to an upper room by her brother and Dunlone. Betty was fled, he knew not whither, and Luvaine gone to take his turn of guard in the chamber⁷ of the “Priest’s Hole,” which now, in the light of late discovery, was considered the nucleus⁸ of danger.

 

Dusk was creeping on when, in the midst of his irritable⁹ tramping, he turned to find that Dennis was come into the room.

 

“By all the devils of cross-purposes,” he said, stopping opposite the man, “I believe we are the only two in the house, Whimple, that understand one another. Tell me, then—what am I to do with the girl?”

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